


Measure For Measure, or, Pippin the Irredeemable

by orphan_account



Category: Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
Genre: Multi, Threesome, over 1000 words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-06
Updated: 2008-04-06
Packaged: 2017-10-04 09:01:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pippin's a flirt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Measure For Measure, or, Pippin the Irredeemable

**Author's Note:**

> A difficult pairing written by the request of Dana.

Rosie liked Pippin, but then everybody did. There was a time when, at first glance, the lad might not arrest a girl's gaze, but he'd taken her around the waist once, and drawn her into the dance, and she'd found out why May had been giving him second half-pints out of her own purse without even needing to be asked.

It was something about the eyes, she'd admit, if pressed. The way he would pay attention to you, a smile at the corner of his mouth, words coming quick and clever through the defenses, until you were laughing and drowning and giving Mr. Pippin whatever Mr. Pippin might desire.

It's no good for a lad, growing up getting everything he wants, her mother had said, but Rosie knew Mistress Cotton would still allow him the apples he stole from her tree whenever passing by Bywater.

And that was before the great disappearing act; before the Ruffians, and the Battle; before the four adventurers had ridden back, all so different from before, and Mr. Pippin taller than any hobbit she'd ever seen, except for Mr. Merry. Now, wherever the two of them went, everybody would be looking. And Mr. Pippin still had those eyes, and every lass and matron, and not a small number of lads, would do just about anything for Mr. Pippin.

No, indeed, said some maternal part of Rosie, that can't be good for a lad.

  
***

  
Her hand flailed for support, and hit a cookie jar. To her the clatter sounded like a thunderclap. No helping it now, though; some things, once started, can't easily be stopped, even if Sam was just a room away in the hall fixing up that hat shelf and she'd rebuffed him this morning because the kettle was on and Mr Frodo—

The short cry was jolted out of her, quite against her intention, but she swallowed any further sounds; at the least she shouldn't rub it in even if Sam now—

She was liquid white fire from her belly to her neck, and she grasped a handful of wavy curls, almost golden in the shaft of light from the pantry window.

  
***

  
Rosie sighed, regret already flowing in to fill the space left by pleasure. Pippin lifted her face up and kissed her lightly with lips that still smelled of her own moisture. She hung onto him, but only for a while. The moment was slipping, and now it was time for consequences.

Pippin buried his face in her hair. "It's all right, Rosie," he said, laughing just a little. "Really."

Rosie didn't dignify that with an answer. Tall as he was, Pippin was just a boy, and consequences, it seemed, were things for women to worry about. "You get on, now," she said, instead, pushing away from him at last and rearranging her dress. "I have a thing or two to do."

"But, Rosie—if you're worried about..."

"Not another word from you, rogue," she said firmly and ushered him out of the pantry. "I'll have the hole to myself and my family now, if you please. Mr Frodo's not returning till nightfall, anyway, and the Dragon's full of hobbits who still haven't heard enough tales of the Battle."

She literally shoved him out the back door and closed and latched it on his nose. Even to Pippin, that should be hint enough, she hoped. She glanced at herself in the small mirror that hung by the door and rearranged her curls. Then she put the kettle on, again, as it was nearing tea-time.

Eventually she found Sam in the garden. He'd been growing hedges to replace the picket fence, and crouched there now with an uprooted bush by his side, digging it a new place among its kin. He'd heard the door, she was almost sure of it.

She went to him, crouched herself, and slung both arms around him. She loved him so much it hurt; the love was why she hurt, now.

She felt his hand closing on one of her own, the black earth crumbling between their skins. "There now, lass," he said.

  
***

  
"It seems Pippin's upset Rose," Frodo said.

"Was it the way she stuck her nose up at him at the market this morning, or the way she's started calling him Mr Took that tipped you off?" asked Merry conversationally.

"The way Pip's been gazing up the hill looking like a frog that's been struck over the head is what really nailed the matter," Frodo replied.

Pippin grinned, but blushed up to his eartips. The evening was cooling rapidly, but the three of them still sat on the benches outside the Dragon, half-pints grasped in hands.

"He's hardly touched his third ale," Merry remarked.

"Must be serious."

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking, cousin?"

"I think so, but where are we going to find a vat of honey and enough wrapping paper?"

The two collapsed in drunken giggles. Pippin took a long draft of his beer and stood up.

"Cousins, you are disgracefully drunk," he informed them with dignity. "I will see you in the morning." And he started up the hill, towards Bag End.

Frodo giggled helplessly under Merry's arm.

  
***

  
Frodo had insisted that Sam and Rosie take the master bedroom – and, she had to admit, it was a fine choice for them. There was room enough for them both on the bed, and for a crib by the door when a child was born, as well as the dressing table and the cabinets. Sam felt guilty about it, she knew, but had consented under Frodo's insistence.

He lay on his belly now, as Rosie kneaded the knots out of his back. She wanted to touch him all the time, but now with this afternoon still so fresh between them she was afraid to do so without a good reason. She hated that she was. Still, she didn't say a word. Guilt worked like that, sometimes.

Sam sighed, and turned, and pressed his fingertips lightly on her bare arms. Rosie loved the shape of his eyes, still visible under the deepening shadow of his brow.

"It's all right, Rosie," he said after a while.

"I'm not tired yet—"

"About Mr. Pippin."

She looked down, the moonlight drawing strange shadows across his chest.

"He's like that, I know. If he wants a thing, you'll want it as well—"

She kissed him, hard, possessive, brimming with rage and grief.

  
***

  
Pippin knew he could make things right, of course. This really was very simple, after all, and Rosie wasn't in possession of all the facts.

  
***

  
"You could... let me... finish... a sentence... now and then!"

She began to giggle, and then there it was, that little mewl of hers Sam loved so well. Her body stiffened and rolled, and he unravelled. They collapsed together on the bedsheets, now tangled and moist with sweat.

And that was just what this was, every time – an unravelling. He didn't know how to put that into words, he never had; there were worlds of Rosie that she had constructed herself sentence by sentence in a language he couldn't read; but he thought them beautiful, nonetheless. Then there were times when the sentences faded and there was only the light between them, like now, time and flesh left behind.

Then and there, neither of them wanted to speak, so they slept, instead, tangled together.

  
***

  
It took mortal danger to daunt Pippin from a task when he was sober, and when he had five (for it had been five, not three) half-pints and a shot of brandy under his belt it would be advisable not to let him give himself tasks at all. So it was that Rosie awoke to the jump of the mattress, and to the sight of a hobbit sitting at the foot of her marriage bed. It was a moment before she was awake enough to fumble for the covers and pull them over herself.

Sam was sitting up next to her, clearly more up to date than she, as he was already saying, "Now, while I under—"

"Shush!" said their guest, and Rosie realised with dawning horror who it was. "Before you say a word, Sam, if I may, or mayn't, I have to say, I mean..."

Rosie groaned. It was Pippin, and a drunk Pippin at that. Sam swung his legs over the bed's side and lit the bedside candle.

"What was I saying again?" asked Pippin.

"You were telling my wife," Sam said calmly, "why I understand about her and you and the pantry."

"Right!" said Pippin happily, and clambered into Sam's lap.

Sam was still quite naked, and Pippin fully dressed for a chilly night. In the candle and the moon's light Sam was one smooth surface, and Pippin a collection of small black shadows, or a patchwork of light.

Rosie knew about her husband and Mr Frodo. There were times when, after they'd been in the study for a while, she'd listened at the door to hear voices in conversation before knocking. Pays to be sure, she thought. Sam had made his little confession after he'd finally asked her, but it had not been much of a surprise, nor a hindrance as far as she could see. Sam said she thought too much, but some things, she knew, didn't need understanding too well, and what's between two people, well, it's not necessarily something a third needs to know about.

But this was her bed, now, and that wasn't Mr Frodo kissing her Sam, his fingers tangled in the soft hair on Sam's neck. She saw a flicker of tongue pass between their mouths, and her own lips tingled in memory.

Sam pulled away, laughing a little, and stole a brief embarrassed glance at his wife. "You see, Rosie, I know what it's like when Mr. Pippin—hey, no, oh!"

All Rosie could see was Pippin's head buried in the crook of Sam's neck, and the tips of the lad's fingers running lightly across his side, and Sam bent back, and oh, she knew those spots, Sam never could push her away if she got him bending like that, and oh, she was going to throttle Mr. Pippin, she was. If only she wasn't naked.

"No – Mr. Pippin, NO," Sam tried, but he was already on his back, and Pippin threw his legs up to straddle him, grinning from ear to ear.

To the pit with modesty, Rosie thought, and threw the covers aside. "A no is a no, fancy Tookish thain son or not—" She was aware of a blush of anger on her face as she put herself between the two, both palms pushing Pippin away at his chest. But she really should not have tried to give him a stern look. It was only half-light, but damn him for an oversized lush, Pippin was doing the thing with his eyes again.

His eyebrows would shoot up, and his mouth would become a small curved suggestion of a smile, and your eyes were drawn to his, and they were always just the shade you needed to see to convince you.

"Oh, Rosie, I was only trying to make you see," he said, as innocent as you please.

"Oh, I see, all right," Rosie huffed, hanging tight onto her anger. "Fine, I won't feel bad about myself anymore, and I'll even forgive you if you'll get off my husband now, if it please you, Mr Pippin, sir."

Pippin didn't budge, but that little mouth curved downwards, a picture of hurt pride. "I don't want you two to fight."

"Oh, no, we are agreed, aren't we Sam, that it's all Mr. Pippin's fault?"

"Absolutely." Sam wasn't budging, either, but watching her with quiet admiration.

"Oh, now, that isn't fair, either. I wasn't the only one who wanted it."

"You make people want it, Pippin, and you know it."

Pippin's mouth curved up again. Yes, that pleased him, didn't it, him with his dreadful, wonderful eyes. He forced the grin down, but his eyes still glinted, when he continued, "I see. I see. Very well then, I can see when I'm not wanted." He stood up on his knees, allowing Sam to squirm into a sitting position. "Good night then, Rosie," he said, and kissed her again. She hardly noticed it when her mouth fell open against his, and there was the flicker of tongue, and his fingers brushing the side of her breast. A small moan escaped her. By the time he'd released her she was beef red, and only half noticed him swooping in on Sam again. She heard his "Goodnight, Sam," and blinked up to see her husband reddening under much the same treatment. Then Pippin slid quickly out of the bed and toddled into the hallway.

Oh, spit that boy!

  
***

  
Pippin lodged in one of the many Bag End guest rooms, one adjoining Merry's. Not knowing when he'd be back, no-one had bothered to fix up a hot water bottle, and the sheets were cold and uninviting. Pippin still wormed out of every single piece of garment and even thought for a second or two before putting on his nightshirt. Finally, for the look of the thing at least, he slid into the nightshirt, and climbed in between the sheets.

He had time enough for the sheets to warm up a bit before he heard footsteps and whispers from the hallway. "—go back afterwards—" he could make out, and "—foolish--" and "—hush!".

The door opened with a creak, and Rosie and Sam stepped into the room in their nightshirts. Sam carefully closed the door behind them.

"It's only this once, you hear?" Rosie murmured as she joined him under the covers. Pippin grinned against her skin and pulled her thigh tight against his.

Soon, Sam pressed in on his other side.

  
***

  
As it turned out, Rosie and Sam did not go back to their own bed that night. Morning found the two of them still tangled with Pippin in the guest room, bed warmed thrice over, hot water bottle or no.

Rosie woke slowly, finding a crick in her neck where she'd laid her head against Pippin's outstretched arm. She struggled up, sensing the sunlight outside even though this deeper room was windowless. Sam lay on his back snoring slightly, and she would be dashed if Pippin didn't look smug as a tomcat, curled up to her husband.

Rosie pulled him on his back, pushed the curls from his face. Pippin mumbled a feeble protest, but didn't open his eyes. Rosie grinned, and slipped her fingertips slowly down along Pippin's belly. She'd learned a few things last night she wouldn't forget in a hurry.

Pippin arched, mumbled in protest, then encouragement, and finally opened green sleep-soft eyes. He answered Rosie's grin sleepily. "Now there's a sight to wake up to."

Rosie leaned in to kiss him, morning breath or no, and continued to work her fingers on him. Their tongues met, and Pippin was bending, giving in. She liked that. She liked that a great deal.

You won't control me so if I control you right back, she wanted to say. I'll teach you affection goes both ways, she might have added. Instead, all she mumbled against Pippin's cheek was, "Silly lad."

Perhaps he already knew.


End file.
